Jake Paul called for Ryan Garcia to “chill out” in the aftermath of his first-round stoppage of Ryan Bourland.
Paul recorded his ninth victory as a professional at the Coliseo Jose Miguel Agrelot in San Juan, Puerto Rico when the referee Luis Pabon intervened to rescue the 35-year-old Bourland from further punishment while he struggled to defend himself as a consequence of a powerful right hand.
The build-up to the attention-seeking influencer-come-boxer’s latest fight had been overshadowed by the start of the build-up of Devin Haney-Garcia, which is scheduled for April 20 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
That Garcia, between Tuesday’s press conference in New York and Thursday’s in Los Angeles, laughed and then said on a social media stream “I’m laughing because I’m high as f***” has contributed to concerns about not only his coming fight but his wellbeing and potentially career, and at his post-fight press conference Paul said: “Ryan, I love you, you know that, bro, but you gotta chill out, bro.
“There’s a line – you just seem like you’re losing your mind, acting thirsty, and desperate, and saying you’re a millionaire when you’ve had one money fight. I’m just saying – just chill, bro.
“If you do wanna fight – that’s, to me, you’ve got no footwork, and as long as you’ve been in the game I’m a better boxer than you.”
The “money” fight to which Paul was referring was between Garcia and Gervonta “Tank” Davis at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena in April 2023, and proved the year’s most commercially successful fight.
“He’s doing some cocaine,” alleged the 27-year-old Paul in a mocking manner, through adopting a Spanish accent for the last of those four words.
“That boy is getting that s*** straight from Colombia or something. That s***’s strong.”